The longer the Tennessee coaching search dragged on, the more Vol Nation was calling for AD Phillip Fulmer to hire USC OC Tee Martin to be the program’s next coach.

That would have been pretty interesting, considering Fulmer coached Martin and the Vols to the 1998 national championship.

However, Martin never got serious consideration from the Vols, and on Tuesday, he gave a very honest answer about how interested he was in becoming Tennessee’s head coach. As you can see below in the video shared by @Scott_Schrader on Twitter, Martin reveals he wasn’t going to return as the Vols’ offensive coordinator:

“It was a situation where if I was going to go back to Tennessee, it was to be as the head coach, not as coordinator,” he said. “I made that message very clear. I was out of that discussion, so they moved on to do what they had to do.”

The Vols eventually settled on Alabama DC Jeremy Pruitt, so it’ll be interesting to see if he can turn the program around.

If he can’t, fans will be left wondering what could have been with Martin at the helm.